Gunpowder Milkshake (Netflix film) — Look, Netflix original action films might seem like they’re in plentiful supply these days, but this one’s worth particular notice. Karen Gillan portrays the assassin-daughter of an elite assassin, portrayed by Lena Headey, and the pair come back together again to help protect a young girl from an organization known as The Firm. Nope, Tom Cruise does not make a cameo in this picture, but there’s a group called The Librarians, who are played by Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett, and Carla Gugino. Essentially, we’ve got three generations of badass ladies here, doing their best to wipe out pesky henchmen and raise a lot of hell.
Heist: Season 1 (Netflix series) — Three of America’s greatest heists shall be examined in the finest of detail here by the people who did the heisting. These adventures include a Vegas casino heist, a Miami airport heist, and a a Kentucky bourbon heist. The shooting style here aims for Ocean’s Eleven and Catch Me If You Can, and the planning of these heists is flat-out meticulous, so it’s no wonder that the initial heisting went well. However, one must realize that these heisters were eventually busted, so there’s that part of the story, too. Crime doesn’t pay in the long-term, kids.
Loki: Episode 6 (Disney+ series, releasing in the wee hours of Wednesday morning) — Tom Hiddleston’s fetchingly charming, mercurial trickster can’t stop showing us all of his forms, and hopefully, he and Sylvie stirred up some good forces at the end of the season’s penultimate episode. We’ll see if the Time Variance Authority lasts the test of, well, time this week, won’t we?
Shark Week 2021 (Discovery+, Discovery, Nat Geo) — The annual shark-involved festivities continue with several new entries, including Tiger Queen on Discovery+ as well as three entries on Discovery: MechaShark (8:00pm), The Real Sharknado (9:00pm), and Return to Lair of the Great White (10:00pm).
My Unorthodox Life (Netflix series) — A fashion mogul belongs to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, which doesn’t exactly jive with her CEO job. No matter, she manages to revolutionize her world and still pull off motherhood, which makes me freaking exhausted to think about. Still, the promise of an untamed and unpredictable heroine, who’s struggling to balance her upbringing and her actual life, is an intriguing premise to pursue.
The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Don Cheadle, Cecily Strong, BTS
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Mindy Kaling, Wally Baram
Late Night With Seth Meyers — Florence Pugh, Questlove, Walk The Moon
In case you missed this pick from last week:
Monsters at Work: Season 1 Premiere (Disney+ series) — Twenty freaking years ago when Monsters Inc. came out in theaters, Pixar films’ very existence still felt like a revelation, given that adults could straight-up dig these kid-geared movies, too. These days, that’s no longer a novel concept, but this franchise has persisted with a prequel and a few shorts, and now, John Goodman and Billy Crystal return as James P. “Sulley” Sullivan and Mike Wazowski. They have both been promoted, and a new crop of monsters (voiced by Mindy Kaling, Henry Winkler, Ben Feldman, and Alana Ubach) are doing the harvesting. The twist here is that although the franchise is going back to basics, the franchise is trading scares for laughter after realizing that — surprise — laughter generates so much more energy for Monstropolis than screams can produce.